Alone with the Beast
by Time's Quill
Summary: A beast lives within my house. Intangible as thought, it fills every nook and cranny of my home. It sits on my shoulders and weighs me down like a necklace of chains. Its hold on my heart is something no magic can break, and it will squeeze until I crumble under the pressure. I can do nothing but wait for that day, hoping that He will return and deliver me from my torment.


_My friend, ouatevilregal8, requested this. I haven't been on FF for a while, but I'm a sucker for requests. I hope you enjoy this, and please leave constructive criticism or vague praise or mindless drooling in the review box. FF's become more user-friendly since I was last on- you don't even need to login to leave a quick review. Even lazies like myself can scratch up a quick sentence or two now without having to budge. _

_Enjoy! :)_

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There is more inside my house than just myself. A beast resides within its walls, hanging in the hallways like a cloud, like a curtained light that simultaneously casts everything into hazy shadow and stark relief. When I walk down the stairs, my heels _clack _against the marble and disturb the beast. When it rears its head, my mouth drops into a frown, and my heart turns into solid stone. I cannot bear it for much longer; its power is something that cannot be battled alone. I, the Mayor of Storybrooke, the Evil Queen herself, am helpless against it, and it is this fact- this inescapable fact- that makes me sit alone in my bedroom, the door closed and the curtains drawn wide.

The mornings are the worst. They are the beast's natural hunting time. It sleeps in the night, for the night encompasses it. It fades away during the night, because it is already a piece of it. I need not worry about the beast then. Come the dawn, however, when the rooster crows and the large yellow engine roars past the driveway in silent remembrance, the beast stirs from its hold and reveals itself once more, hanging over the entire house and taking it into its clutches. In the mornings, I sit at the kitchen table, eating my breakfast slowly and doing my utmost to ignore the beast that sits across from me. It sits at the table's only other chair, and it hangs over the bowl I continually set morning after morning.

I don't know why I still set out that bowl. In all practical senses, it is a meaningless gesture. Its intended use cannot be fulfilled, and its owner is no longer present with me. Sentimentality, I suppose, is the only thing that makes me fill the bowl, push in the chair, and fill the glass every morning. The beast loves that I do it. It sits in the chair and mocks me, though it does not eat. It cannot eat, for eating would go against its essence. Instead, it sits in the chair and stares at me with its empty face, a face without eye or lid.

I know where the beast stays. I have to pass The Room every day. Every time I come up the stairs, I can feel it filling The Room like a cloud. I don't go into The Room anymore. I know the beast is waiting for me in there. Waiting, waiting for me to crack open the door, waiting for my eyes to take it in and absorb the reality of its presence, waiting for the dam to break. I don't go into The Room. When I come up the stairs, I turn my face away and hurry to the side, doing my best to distract myself with thoughts of the town.

When I go out into the town, the beast comes with me. It sits on my shoulder, though none of the others can see it. It weighs on me like a necklace of chains, and even when I am surrounded by the company of others it still cloaks me in its shroud. Separated from the world by the veil of the beast, I can do nothing but watch as the beast's originator walks around the town. He is smiling and happy, carefree and filled with the light of the sun. The beast is amused, though it makes no sound. It cannot laugh, for laughing would go against its essence. It taunts me with its mouthless face; with words unheard and unspoken it mocks me. I can do nothing but watch, and when the originator turns the corner, I am left alone with the beast once again.

My house is large, but the beast fills every corner of it. Every crook and cranny of it; no matter where I go, the beast is waiting. It is strongest in The Room, but its presence is everywhere. I can feel it wrapped around my heart, twisting ever tighter and dragging it down to the depths of my soul. No matter how I rage and storm, I can do nothing against it. My cries slide off its earless face with the futility of desperation, and I am left facing it with nothing but the shame of failure burning a brand into my body.

I am fighting alone, with no comrades or companions to share my burden. My battle with the beast is one that does not end, for I have no real foe to face. My magic is useless against it, for it is intangible as thought. Yet, a thought is all it takes to turn a heart to stone and fill the mind with unending gloom. I am steadily losing ground against it: every day, it grows more powerful. Time is the beast's ally; with every dawn, the beast grows a couple pounds heavier. When I walk out into the town, I can feel its weight increasing, the burden growing greater than ever before.

Soon, the beast will overpower what few defenses I have left. I am fighting a war that can never be won, a war that was forced upon me. I did not choose for this beast to come into my home. Nor did anyone else. The beast is not the result of a malevolent spell, the magic of my enemies. Nobody knows about it but I, for that is the beast's nature. The beast crept into the void created some time ago, crept in with arms and legs devoid of any hand or foot. Crept into my home. Crept into me.

The beast stays with me always. I live alone in the house, the beast hanging over the hallways and sitting in the chair and waiting in The Room. I live alone, with nothing but the memories of the past to fill my mind. Memories of a time gone by, a time when the beast was nothing more than a momentary chill, a time when the originator wasn't the originator. A time when he was known by another name.

I live alone, and I wait. I know my fate. Either the originator will enter the house and take up arms into The Room, slaying the beast and ending my torment, or I will succumb to the beast. That day is coming: the day when the beast tightens his grip on my heart and my heart crumbles under the strain. If the originator does not come back, if he does not come back to me, I will fall. I can do nothing but wait. Wait, with the beast silently mocking me with mouthless face and eyeless sockets.

There is more inside my house than just myself, but it is not the more I want. It is the more that is less, the thing that strains the air and keeps me from ever sitting still. It is the beast, the beast that never leaves, the beast that torments me every hour that the originator is not with me. It is Silence, it is Loss, and it is the Void that Henry left in my heart when he chose Emma over me.


End file.
